Rapid estimation of vibrational zero-point energies of silicon compounds

In this paper, we extended the application of our empirical formula for the calculation of vibrational zero-point energies (ZPEs) to silicon compounds. The bond contribution of SiC, SiH, SO, SiCl and SiSi were determined. The results obtained for more than 90 chemical systems containing these bonds are in good agreement with the experimentally available values. The estimated zero-point energies were compared with the results obtained by application of the extended empirical formula of Schulmann and Disch and with the scaled values obtained using the semi-empirical method (AM1) and the DFT method (B3LYP/6-31G∗), in all cases with satisfactory results.